I too read Kerkut a long time ago, judging from the color of my photocopies
of portions of the book it must have been *at least* 22-25 years ago, and I
have only rarely gone back to it since.

My notes show that the introduction was quoted at length by Paul Little,
Know Why You Believe. Little was hardly a garden-variety creationist.

Like Peter, I too was struck by those statements about the a priori nature
of much evolutionary theory, at least as Kerkut saw it in 1960. My notes
jog my memory enough to say, that Kerkut was probably one of the main
reasons why I was not a TE until several years later. My theological
hesitations about accepting TE, mainly driven by concerns related to an
historical Adam/fall (reflecting my background in the reformed tradition, a
tradition that I still substantially retain), were coupled with objections
to "macroevolution" taken from genuine scientists like Kerkut. Indeed I
don't recall any other scientific authorities who wrote more clearly and
frankly about the limitations of the state of knowledge at that time. My
sense is, that if Kerkut had been published in (say) 1995, he'd be seen as
an "ID" advocate, or at least would be widely cited by ID authors. I don't
see much citing of him nowadays, however.